Health Information Science: Perspectives on a discipline in development (Panel)
Abstract
This panel convenes six emerging scholars in the area of health information science, to trace some of the multiple pathways taken by this pluralistic discipline in research, practice and policy areas. How is HIS developing as an academic discipline? In describing the conceptual and methodological concerns of their work, presenters will raise some of the live questions shaping a health information science lens, including:
- What practice and policy sectors contain pressing HIS questions right now?
- What methodologies are most saliently informing research production in HIS?
- What theoretical approaches have been tried in current and ongoing HIS research?
- How is knowledge translation effected in HIS?
Live presentations and Q&A
Individual presentations
Working with youth as stakeholders in mental health systems transformation: An institutional ethnography of a mental health service organization
Eugenia Canas
iKnow: Towards a co-designed digital health literacy assessment tool for children
Danica Facca
Relevance & applicability of health information science to studying implementation of health policy interventions
David Roger Walugembe
Optimizing the health information system for the next infectious disease pandemic in developing countries: Enhancing an information system model approach
Uche Ikenyei
Who decided that was a good idea? Exploring links between violence against women (VAW) client needs and policy decisions during COVID-19
Jill Veenendaal
Eugenia Canas
Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University
Eugenia Canas, PhD is Post-doctoral Associate with the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University, and a Trainee of the Gender, Trauma & Violence Informed Knowledge Incubator. Her doctoral work focused on the impact of service-user involvement upon the design and delivery of mental health services. Eugenia’s other research and knowledge-translation collaborations include roles in the CIHR grant titled Voices against Violence: Youth Stories Create Change; the Wisdom 2 Action Network; the Mental Health Incubator for Disruptive Solutions; and the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s SPARK Training Institute.
Danica Facca
Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University
Danica Facca is a third-year doctoral student in Health Information Science at Western University, working under the supervision of Dr. Lorie Donelle. She holds Graduate Research Assistant positions within the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing and School of Occupational Therapy at Western University. She is primarily interested in digital health literacy and children’s engagement with digital technologies in the Web 2.0 and 3.0 context. As such, her doctoral research will explore children’s digital health literacy skills within the COVID-19 context. She has published on areas related to digital health research with children, digital health literacy, and digital health apps in The International Journal of Qualitative Methods, PLOS ONE, Health Science Inquiry, and The Conversation Canada. Her other research areas of interest include digital health, data ethics, surveillance, self-tracking, and digital qualitative methodologies. Danica holds a BA in English Literature (first major) and Criminology (second major) and an MA in English Literature with a collaborative graduate specialization in Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction from Western University.
David Roger Walugembe
Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University
David is a Ph.D. Health Information Science Candidate who is passionate about integrated knowledge translation, research utilization and implementation science. His PhD research explores the implementation of policy interventions to improve maternal and child health interventions in low- and middle-income contexts.
Uche Ikenyei
Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University
Uche is a Ph.D. candidate in the Health Information Science program, Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University. He has a bachelor’s degree in Human Nutrition and a master’s degree in Epidemiology. Uche also has over 13 years working experience in the health development aid sector in Nigeria, where he led organizational monitoring and evaluation units to guide decision-making processes in public health programs.
Uche focuses on understanding health challenges from a health system lens; he applies his knowledge and experience in proffering feasible and sustainable evidence-based solutions for public health emergencies policy making and practice. His current research focuses on better understanding health service delivery challenges in developing countries in an infectious disease pandemic context. Uche’s desire to make this contribution to knowledge was driven by the need to prevent a repeat of the 2013-2016 Ebola and the current COVID-19 pandemics in West Africa by ensuring that theoretical models are applicable to assessing developing countries’ health information system challenges based on their country’s contextual reality.
Jill Veenendaal
Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University
Jill Veenendaal is PhD candidate in the Health Information Science program, Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University, and is supervised by Dr. Nadine Wathen. Jill’s broad research interests include the role that trauma- and violence-informed (TVIC) practices can play in the health and social service settings. Her current area of focus is an examination of provincially-mandated policies that impact service provision in domestic violence shelters in Ontario. Jill holds a BA in Political Science (public administration) and MA in Sociology (policy and health). Jill has professional experience as a researcher and program evaluator in the non-profit, social service, and health sectors.
